ROINN COSANTA. BUREAU OF MILITARY HISTORY, 1913-21. STATEMENT BY WITNESS. DOCUMENT NO. W.S. 939 Witness Ernest Blythe (Earnan de Blaghd), 50 Kenilworth Square, Rathmines, Dublin. Identity. Organiser on staff of Volunteer Executive: Organiser for I.R.B.; Director of Trade and Commerce 1918-1922. Subject. (a) National activities, 1905-1923; (b) Organisation of Irish Volunteers and I.R.B., 1913 - ; (c) Dail Eireann, 1919 -. Conditions, if any, Stipulated by Witness. Nil. File No S.66 Form B.S.M.2
Statement by Mr. Ernest Blythe, 50, Kenilworth Square, Rathmines, Dublin and Managing Director Abbey Theatre Company. I had always wanted to learn Irish. I came to Dublin as a Boy Clerk in the Department of Agriculture in March, 1905, a week or two before I was sixteen. Within about an hour of coming to town I heard three people speaking Irish outside the Gaelic League Book-shop, which occupied the building where Mackey's seed shop now is. Having stood looking at the books in the window and listening to the Irish-speaking group as long as they talked, I went in and bought the first book of O'Growney's Easy Lessons, which I began studying that night in the Queen's Theatre during the intervals of a melodrama called "The Lights of London", the first play I had ever seen. For several months I was afraid to join the Gaelic League because I believed hat if it were discovered that I was a Protestant I should be put out. On the other hand I began to feel myself bogged for want of a teacher. Ultimately when Dr. Douglas Hyde was setting out for America in the November of that year, and when a demonstratior took place in O'Connell Street, I plucked up my courage and joined the Central Branch. My first teacher was Sinead Ni Fhlannagain, now Mrs. do Valera. Another teacher was Prionnsias Mac Ionnraich. After I had been four or five months in the Branch carefully keeping myself to myself, I began to talk to a
2. class-mate, George Irvine, and he told me about Griffith's paper, "United Ireland". I had bought and read about three copies before publication ceased as a result of a law action. I became converted to Sinn Féin on the night I sat up reading my first copy of the "United Irishman". Shortly afterwards I joined the Central Branch hurling club and in it became friendly with Sean O'Casey, the future dramatist. After we had known one another for some months, both of us being very bad hurlers and never getting on the team but practising zealously in the Phoenix Park every Saturday and going together to see the matches in which the club team played, Sean began to talk to me about the. Fenians. One Saturday evening, coming home on the tram from the Phoenix Park, he said to me that it was a great pity that the Fenian organisation had not survived. I agreed. When we came to the end of Blessington St. he asked me to leave the tram as he wanted to talk to me. We walked up Hardwicke Street, and he proceeded to inform me that the Fenian organisation was still alive and was again recruiting young men. He asked me if I would join. Having read something about the Invincibles, I told him that I did not favour assassination and would have nothing to do with an organisation which countenanced it. Sean said that the Fenians were completely against assassination, and that their policy was to prepare to make open war on England. I thereupon told him that I should give him my answer the following week. Within a couple of days, however, I had made up my mind to join. When I told Sean I was willing, he said that, as I was a stranger to Dublin and unknown to the
3. people with authority in the organisation, I should be kept under observation for some months. I discovered afterwards that Sean had spoken to me in a moment of impulse without having got authority, and that the so-called period of observation was the period during which he was endeavouring to get authority to speak to me. After a delay of several months Sean finally told me that I might now be sworn in. I met him in O'Connell Street and was taken to a house on the Western side of Parnell Square. A number of people were going up the stairs. I was introduced to Micheal Mac Amhlaidh and taken by him into a back room, where he administered the Oath to me. Afterwards I went with Sean into the front room while Micheal Mac Amhlaidh was swearing in some other new recruits. The front room was packed, I should say there were over a hundred people in it. When, at one point in the proceedings, new members were asked to stand up and let themselves, be seen by the meeting, four or five of us rose. Recruiting was going on very actively at the time. Within a few months, in fact, that particular Circle whose name in the world was the Bartholomew Teeling Literary and Debating Society, split into three. Amongst those who were members of the Circle when I joined were Sean T. O'Kelly, George Nicholls, afterwards of Galway, Thomas Cuffe, who was a great friend of Arthur Griffith, Cathal Brugha and quite a number of people who were prominent in the Gaelic League, Louis Carrick, Proinnsias O Ceallaigh, Donnchadha O heilighthe (saddler) Proinnsias O Ceallachain and Con Collins.
4. I was just eighteen when I joined the I.R.B., and nothing much happened during the two further years I was in Dublin. The main activity was simply recruiting. The most outstanding thing I remember was a kind of mass meeting held in the Clontarf Town Hall. Several members of the organisation apparently had had conscientious scruples and had mentioned the fact of their membership in Confession, with the result that the priests had told them they must get out. Consequently a number of members were lost. The authorities of the organisation in Dublin thought of a way to stop the rot. When suddenly one Sunday afternoon I was mobilised for the meeting in the Clontarf Town Hall that night, a I was told that it was to hear a statement by a priest who was himself a member of the organisation. I saw a lot of people in the Hall whom I was astonished to learn were members. For example, Jack Shouldice who was over me in the Department of Agriculture and Whom I had never suspected of being in the I.R.B. The priest was a Father O'Sullivan, (a brother I heard afterwards of Diarmuid O Duibhne) who was on the Mission in America. He was a member I gathered afterwards of Clan na Gael and not exactly a member of the I.R.B. I looked forward with some interest to hearing why he felt that the I.R.B. did not come under the classification of a condemned secret society. He did not touch on the point at all, but merely said he was a member, that he had no conscientious troubles, and proceeded to make a patriotic speech. The meeting, however, was quite effective, because we heard nothing more of members. leaving for some time.
4.A. My service in the Department of Agriculture would have ended when I reached twenty years of age. As the critical date approached I had begun to try to get a job as a reporter on some newspaper and was finally engaged by the proprietor of the "North Down Herald" of Bangor about a month before I was twenty. I was told to contact Denis McCullough when I went North and he was informed that I was going to the Belfast neighbourhood. I then became a member of the Belfast Circle, which was very small, about fifteen members or so, and met in the workshop at the back of Denis McCullough's premises. At one period I was elected Centre of that Circle, which was the only office I ever held in the I.R.B. In addition to Denis McCullough Bulmer Hobson was the other leading member of the Circle. I introduced Sean Lester, who afterwards became Secretary of the League of Nations, into it. He brought in Alf Cotton, who was at one period a Volunteer organiser in Kerry. Cathal O'Shannon was another member. Archie Heron became a member later. Another member of the Circle was Dan Turley, who was shot as a spy by the I.R.A. about 1922 or 1923. He was quite a good fellow when I knew him. Still another member of the Circle was Harry Shiels who, curiously enough, was one of the guards who held Bulmer Hobson when he was arrested just prior to 1916. Harry Shiels was in the Rising in the Church St. area and got a bullet wound in the elbow, which caused him to lose his arm. Still another member of the Belfast Circle was Frank Wilson in whose house Sean McDermott had lodged. The I.R.B. in Belfast was concerned mainly with recruiting, which proceeded slowly enough. We also had a
5. small arms fund, in imitation of the rifle fund which had been started by the I.R.B. in Dublin shortly after I left. As our membership was so small, however, and collections proceeded slowly we bought only automatic pistols. I think during my time that we did not succeed in raising the money for more than five or six of them, which were distributed amongst the members by lot. Our outward activity was running the Dungannon Club. When I arrived in Belfast the Dungannon Club was in a state of suspended animation, and the only thing we could do for a period was to meet weekly in Denis McCullough's workshop, sitting on benches and on dismantled pianos, and paying a shilling each towards liquidating the debt. When we got the Club cleared we began public activities. We got rooms in Smithfield, held Irish classes, dances and weekly lectures for a period, but we were again financially disabled by defalcations by two of our officers. The Dungannon Club helped the Fianna also, of which there were two Sluaighte in Belfast, an ordinary Sluagh and the only girls' Sluagh in Ireland. The girls' Sluagh was a terrible thorn in the side of the boys because its existence caused them to be nick-named "The Betsy Grays" up and down the Falls Road; but they were never able to get it abolished. The principal function that; I remember being organised by us was a lecture by Major MacBride which was very well attended and got a good deal of publicity. Actually circumstances at that time in Belfast were such that it was not possible to do much against the influence of Joe Devlin and the Hibernians on one side and the Orange mob on the other.
6. After some time I was asked by Denis McCullough and Bulmer Hobson to resign from being Centre of the Belfast Circle. They explained to me that it was to enable McCullough to be elected to a higher office. I believe that Denis McCullough, who was in touch with the surviving remains of the old I.R.B. through the North, was ultimately elected Ulster Representative, and that either he or Pat McCartan, I think the latter, was President of the I.R.B. at the time of the Rising. However, I heard only faint rumours of what went on in higher circles. Early in 1913 I carried out a plan which had been in my mind for a year or so. I resigned from the paper in which I was working and set off for the Kerry Gaeltacht to try to get a job as a farm labourer, so that I could make some better progress with my study of Irish. On my way to Kerry I stayed a couple of nights in town with Bulmer Hobson and met Sean McDermott. I went from Dublin to Killarney, where I stayed a night with the Seabhac, and he gave me some letters of introduction to people in Dingle, Ventry and Dunquin. On my first morning in Dingle I was hailed by a man with an English accent who had heard about me from Mrs. O'Shea (Eills de Barra), on whom the Seabbac had advised me to call. The man was Desmond Fitzgerald, who had come to live at Ballintaggart, a mile outside Dingle, only three or four days before. I found that Mrs. Fitzgerald came from Donaghadee, where, as a reporter at a Petty Sessions, I had often met her father who was an exceedingly cranky magistrate. I was with the Fitzgeralds practically every Sunday during the period I remained in Kerry.
7. With the Seabhac's letters of introduction I cycled round the country West of Dingle trying to get a job as a farm labourer, but, not unnaturally, I was received with politeness but no enthusiasm. People obviously thought I was a queer bird. When I was beginning to wonder would I have to go back to newspaper work without much further delay, I got a letter from Sean McDermott telling me that he had been speaking to Tom Ache, whom I did not know. lie said that Tom had told him that his younger brother, Gregory, had gone to America just a couple of weeks before, and had left the family rather short-handed. He added that Tom had written to his brother John, who was in charge of the farm, telling him that I would probably be out to see him. I was much relieved to get the letter. I went out at once to Kinnard, which is about four miles East of Dingle. I saw the Ashes and arranged to come out there to work the following day. Although I was brought up on a farm, I had not done any manual work for some years and found it exceedingly hard at first. Not only did my hands blister and give me trouble, but I was so sleepy at night that when I sat listening to people speaking Irish I could not keep awake. Almost immediately I saw that, in a district like that, where Irish was beginning to disappear and where it was little spoken by the young people, if I spoke English at all the people would not be bothered listening to me trying to stammer along in Irish. consequently on my first evening in Kinnard I decided that in no circumstances would I speak any English there. For the first few months
8. my resolution was hard to keep. IL often had to wait three or four weeks before I got the Irish to say something I wanted to say, but I began rather quickly to understand what was said to me. I kept my resolution so well that Mairead Ashe, a cousin of Tom Ashe, now Mrs. Geary of Limerick, meeting me in 1922 in Dublin said to me that that was the first time she had ever heard me speak English. I went to the Ashes in April, 1913. At Christmas 1915 I went home to Belfast for about three weeks. During that time I spoke in the Dungannon Club, and on my way back I spent about a fortnight in Dublin. During the time I was in Dublin I went to several Volunteer drills and learned at any rate the mystery of forming fours. When I got back to Kerry I found that although Volunteer Companies were being formed throughout the country it was bard to get much done in the Dingle neighbourhood. Meantime the Partition issue became very much alive and in March I was written to by Sean McDermott and asked to go up to Belfast to work on an anti-partition campaign which was to be started there. Whatever funds were needed were provided by the I.R.B. Denis McCullough was in charge and I was supposed to write and speak and organise generally. We decided at once to have anti-partition meetings on the Falls Road. A lot of people said that we should be stoned by Joe Devlin's supporters, and that much more harm than good would result. Joe Connolly was so strongly of this opinion that he refused to participate in our work.
9. We were ourselves considerably impressed by the arguments. However, as the I.R.B. authorities had decided that the a campaign vas to start, we arranged to go ahead. We got a coal-lorry from a friendly owner, had it drawn out into a suitable side street off the main road and started our first meeting, having put up placards a day or two in advance. A very big crowd came to listen to us. We attacked Partition strongly without saying anything against Joe Devlin, and got a very good reception. We held a number of similar meetings and had no trouble anywhere. We got a Labour man called, I think, Campbell to speak with us at one meeting, but apart from him the meetings were addressed by Denis McCullough, myself, Archie Heron, a cousin of Archie's called Ralph Bullick, and two or three young members of the Dungannon Club. We sent out roneographed circulars against Partition to all the Nationalist papers in the North, and succeeded in getting a little publicity, naming ourselves, I think, the Anti-Partition Association. However, it was clear after a couple of months that we could not alter the general complexion of political affairs in Belfast, and that there was nothing more to be done at that juncture. I then went back to Kerry. Meantime I had been at some drills run by the Fianna and by the Volunteers. When I arrived in Kerry the Volunteers had got going in Dingle, with Desmond Fitzgerald on the committee.
10. He succeeded in forming a Company at Ventry, and Paddy Devane and some others came from Dingle to Lispole and a started a Company there. I joined, and for several Sundays we drilled outside the church after Mass, our drill instructor being an ex-militia man whose knowledge was rudimentary. When we had been forming fours and so on for about two or three Sundays he got confused on one occasion and gave some wrong orders, so that the girls of the parish, who were standing on a bank opposite us watching the proceedings, were shrieking with laughter. I was smitten with a sudden rage, and did what a local man could not have done. I left my place in the ranks, ordered the militia-man to step into the vacant space, and proceeded to carry on the drill. From that moment, a without further formality, I was Captain of the Lispole Company. A little time after the shooting of the Austrian Archduke and when it had been apparent that war had become likely, Paddy Devane came out from Dingle to Kinard on a motor bicycle to say that the O Rathaille was at his bungalow in Ventry and wanted to see me urgently. I left the hayfield, put on my Sunday suit and cycled over to Ventry where I stayed the night with the Fitzgeralds, coming over to the O Rathaille in the morning. After greeting me he took out a wad of notes, laid it on the table, told me that he had come from Dublin specially to see me, that war would start in a day or two and that he wanted me to go instantly to Germany via Denmark, to represent to the German Government that I spoke on behalf of the leading members of the Volunteer Executive and to ask for arms for the Volunteers and for the formulation of
11. a plan for joint action. Pointing to the notes on the table the O Rathaille said there was no time to be lost a as travel might at any moment become difficult if riot impossible, consequently he had brought the money for my travelling expenses with him. Now I knew that O Rathaille was not in the I.R.B. and would not be aware what that organisation was arranging. I felt sure that the matter of contact with Germany was being attended to, and I also realised that I could not undertake a mission of the kind suggested without the consent and direction of the I.R.B. I told O Rathaille there were people in Dublin whom I would have to consult before I could go to Germany and that, therefore, I could not set off instantly. He was both disappointed and angry and, as I heard afterwards, formed the opinion that I was frightened. For some weeks after I had made myself Captain of the Lispole Company about seventy to ninety men generally fell-in on a Sunday when I blew the whistle after Mass. The shooting at Bachelors Walk after the landing of the Howth guns produced an immediate reaction among the old people. Mothers and fathers urged their sons not to have anything to do with a movement which looked more like being dangerous than it bad heretofore appeared. Talk went round of evictions and house-burnings, and of how mobs of police had carried out a coercion campaign. The following Sunday when I blew the whistle not more than forty men took their places in the ranks. After a short while, however, the numbers began to grow slowly again. At the end of about a month there came a Sunday on which, for various reasons, it had been decided to have
12. no parade. About the time Mass commenced I was in Ashes' house writing. Paddy Devane came out from Dingle on a motor-bicycle and told me that the Cahirciveen Volunteers were coming over by boat to Dingle, and he asked me to bring the Lispole men into Dingle to increase the size of the local parade which would meet them. I had barely time to put on a collar and get down on my bicycle to Lispole church. As I arrived, people were already coming out from Mass. I threw my bicycle into a house opposite the chapel and blew my whistle. Some of the Volunteers had already gone off in the direction of Annascaul. However, I got most of them, and, although they were astonished at being called to fall-in when a contrary arrangement had been made, they took their places in the ranks. I was afraid that a lot of them might not want to go to Dingle, as they would have no money in their pockets and would be in difficulties about getting a meal, so I proceeded with the usual elementary drill and then marched them along the road in the direction of Dingle. When they had gone some distance I noticed a tendency to murmur, so I kept shouting that there must be no talk while they were marching to attention. When we had gone about a mile on the way I fell-out the men, told them the facts, and urged them to come to Dingle. Only about two said they must go home; the remainder fell-in again and we marched the four miles to Dingle. The boats were already at the Quay and the Iveragh men were coming ashore when we arrived. I had no time to speak to anybody until the parade through the town
13. began. When we arrived at the Mall all the Volunteers were formed up, and, for some reason which I never a fathomed, Jackie O'Sullivan, a young publican in the town, came to me and asked me to say a few words of welcome to the Iveragh men. I had no experience of open-air speaking at the time, and I had no opportunity to collect my thoughts. As I climbed up on a heap of stones to address the crowd, Sean Og, known as "Sean a Chota", a brother of Kurger Kavanagh of Dunquin, asked me what I was going to say. I said, "I don't know", but I was conscious that a great opportunity had been offered to me and that my knees were shaking with excitement. The next moment I heard myself saying that if the Germans came as enemies we would do our best to resist them, but that if they came to help us to throw off the English yoke we would flock to their standards. After a few other remarks, I called on the All-Merciful God to crown the German Eagles with who victory. I noticed that the R.I.C. were were present looking as black as thunder, and I thought that they would move forward to arrest me. Desmond Fitzgerald was in the parade with about fifty or sixty men from Ventry, and at the end of my first sentence he led them in a cheer. That was taken up by other groups, and I was four or five times cheered by the whole crowd. When I got down off the heap of stones, some of the police took a step or two towards me, then there was some consultation among themselves and they made no further move. The substance of my speech got considerable publicity,
14. and I believe that it was it which caused Sean McDermott, a few weeks later, to send, for me to take up the post of organiser for the I.R.B. After this meeting, Desmond Fitzgerald, Sean Og and I held several meetings throughout the area, at which we spoke in the strongest terms in favour of a German-Irish alliance. At the end of about three weeks or so, a big parade of Volunteers was arranged to take place at a sports meeting to be held at Annascaul. Just before that, Sean McDermott wrote me and asked me to meet Austin Stack at Lispole station where he would be on his way to Dingle on some court business. I met Stack as requested, and he asked me to swear into the I.R.B. some men whom I could trust, and get a Circle going either in Lispole or in Dingle. I swore in a local man called Griffin, who was living on the other side of the valley from Kinnard. Just before the Annascaul meeting I decided to swear in Desmond Fitzgerald. I went into Dingle the night before and spoke to Alf Cotton, who was instructor for the Volunteers in Tralee and had come with a man called Mullens to Dingle to see the Volunteers there. He had been a member of the Circle with me in Belfast, and he approved of swearing in Desmond, whom we asked to try to get men in Ventry. We went out by train with the Dingle Volunteers next morning as far as Lispole. We then left the train. My men in Lispole were assembled at the station, and we marched on to Annascaul. Without "by your leave" from
15. the sports committee we held a meeting in the field and administered the United Irishmen's Oath to all in the crowd who were willing to put up their hands and take it. Sean Og made a very good speech in Irish. I got home at about twelve o'clock that night, and as I had only had a bun and a sandwich since the previous evening I never felt as tired as I did climbing the hill to Kinnard. The morning post brought a letter from Sean McDermott asking me to go immediately to Dublin. I obeyed the instructions, wiring Desmond Fitzgerald from Tralee. When I got to Dublin Sean told me that he wanted me to go North, taking the Counties Antrim, Derry, Donegal and Tyrone, to contact the old I.R.B. there and to try and work up recruitment and to form new Circles. It was judged at that time impossible to do anything with the Volunteers because of the split caused by Redmond. Actually that view was correct. The Belfast Volunteers during the three or four months that I had been in Kerry from the time we had held the anti-partition meetings, had fallen away almost to nothing, and further defections were occurring every day. In fact Denis McCullough said to me that the position was that practically nobody in Belfast would remain in the Irish Volunteers now unless he held officer rank. He said he foresaw the time when they would have to advertise in the newspapers for a good steady private who would not look for promotion. Clearly any work that could be done at that time, say about October, in the North would have to be done underground
16. and with very small numbers. I was instructed by Sean McDermott to work under the general direction of Denis McCullough, who was the Ulster Representative on the Supreme Council. McCullough gave me odd names of men all over the place whom he knew to be or to have been active in the I.R.B. I tried first round the Aughagallon area on the shores of Laugh Neagh, close to where I was brought up. Of course, my name was not a recommendation there, as an uncle of mine, who was known to have been a Unionist, had lived near the place, and I saw that I was not fully accepted by the two or three people who represented the old I.R.B. I then went to Toomebridge. One of the first people on whom I was requested to call was Mick Lennon, a half-brother of Robert Johnson the father of Eithne Carbery, the poetess. Mick Lennon was about eighty years of age at the time, and was living in a small wayside public-house. When I went to see him there was nobody else in the house. He greeted me in a very friendly way, and proceeded to give me all the information he could about the members of the I.R.B, in the locality. While we were talking we heard drums in the distance. Not knowing the area I thought they were Orange drums. Mick Lennon told me, however, that they were Hibernians and that they would be passing by his house. He thereupon put up the shutters and put out the lights, saying that he did not want to serve "them fellas". The drums stopped outside the door and thirsty men knocked, but both Mick Lennon and I sat quietly in the kitchen until they went away. He was in the original Fenian movement, and told me of a meeting in the
17. Toomebridge neighbourhood attended by James Stephens. While the meeting was in progress a sergeant of the R.I.C. stepped in. Stephens drew a pistol, thinking it was a raid. The sergeant, however, was a member of the organisation and had been delayed in putting in an appearance. I went to see two or three of the people whose names Mick Lennon gave me, and I formed a rather poor opinion of the remains of the I.R.B. There were only one or two senior members in the neighbourhood, and, while they were very good fellows, I saw that all they were doing was maintaining a tradition, and that it would never be possible to get them to make much of a public move. Apparently what had happened in that area and in adjoining areas across the river in County Derry ever since the Fenian time, was that all the young fellows who had a a National outlook were sworn into the I.R.B. when they grew up, and that all of them, or practically all of them, left it when they got married. The only thing that the I.R.B. did there was to keep alive a feeling of dislike and distrust of the Hibernians and of the Parliamentary movement, and to cause a few young people to read "Sinn Féin" or "Irish Freedom". Outside Toomebridge on the Derry side I found some rather better people. There was Hugh Gribbin and his brother Charlie Gribbin. There was also a very live young lad in the village of Ballymacpeake. There was Hugh McGurk in Guladuff. The only part of County Antrim where there were I.R.B. was the Toomebridge area, It was a little more widespread in South Derry, but almost the same sort of people were in it. However, there was already,
18. as a result of the war, a certain tendency to avail of the change in public opinion and to take in new members. In the Magherafelt area I met Louis Smith, who had been prominent in the Land League and in the National League. He was then a very old man. He introduced me, however, to a young relative called Larkin, whom I swore into the I.R.B., and who, I think, was executed during the Civil War. I worked for some time around the Magherafelt-Maghera area and got in touch with not only the older members of the I.R.B. but a few younger men who promised to try and build it up. In Derry city there was actually a Company of Irish Volunteers, and I addressed them in their hall, but they, like the Belfast Volunteers, were actually still getting weaker; members were deserting and going over to the National Volunteers, or joining the British Army. In Strabane there were two or three friendly people who were inclined to make some move, but thought it premature. In Donegal I found nothing along the northern part of the County. There was a station-master, Dan Kelly, in Cashelnagore who had his rifle and Who was a member of the I.R.B., but he was a Derry man and could do nothing locally. Between Cashelnagore and Gortahork there lived a Gaelic League organiser called Hugh fluffy Who was a Sinn Fêiner, but he said that nothing could be done at the time. I went on to Gweedore, where I had the names of a couple of old I.R.B. men, but the only advice they gave me was to
19. get out by the first train next morning. I found it impossible to do anything at all in that area, and left after about a week. I got quite a friendly reception at C1reeslough from a man called McBride who had once been defended by Padraig Pearse many years before when he was prosecuted for having his name in Irish on his cart. I went to his house and talked with himself, his brother and some neighbours who had a good enough National outlook, but they could not get anything done at that time. Hibernianism was rampant and practically all the people were following the old Irish Party. I walked one day from Creeslough to Glen, and there met a shop-keeper named McFadden, who had been recommended to me by McBride. McFadden was very nationally minded, but told me that the whole opinion of the place was such that nothing could be done. It was while I was in Creeslough that the police, who had been looking for me since I left Kerry, caught up with me. As I passed the barracks in Creeslough the sergeant came out with a constable and asked me my name and other particulars. From that time onwards I was seldom free of a police trailer. After leaving North Donegal I went down to the Stranorlar-Ballybofey area and met a Singer's Sewing Machine agent called Cassidy, who knew a big number of people. He introduced me to various individuals. who were willing to join the I.R.B. I swore them in and left the nucleus of two or three small Circles. Amongst the people whom I remember were a publican in Ballybofey
20. called Broadbent, who I do not think was very active afterwards, a blacksmith called Johnny McShane in Raphoe, a and the sexton of the Cathedral in Letterkenny, whose name has escaped me. Going to South Donegal I met the representatives of the old moribund Fenian Circles in Donegal town, in Inver and in Mountcharles area. It was nearly as bad as the North of the County, and, although I got agreement to have one or two young men sworn into the Circles, the impression left on me was that nothing would happen in Donegal for some time. I visited some small meetings in Tyrone, a few miles out from Strabane, including one at Sion Mills, but it was the same story everywhere. Those who "followed MacNeill", as the saying was, were in a hopeless minority, and the followers of Redmond were everywhere on top. However, even within the comparatively short period during which I travelled over from Toomebridge through Deny, North, Mid and South Donegal, some change began to take place. I got a letter from Hugh McGurk saying that he wanted me to address a meeting at Gulladuff. He apparently had been active, had raked up all the past members of the I.R.B., and had got some new members in, and was prepared to go ahead. We held the meeting in the dead of night in the middle of a bog. There seemed to me to be forty or fifty present, and we actually discussed the possibilities of coming out in the open with the formation of a Volunteer Company. Before I went East to Gulladuff I had, in
21. conjunction with Dents McCullough, arranged a public pro-sinn Féin, pro-macneill meeting at Toomebridge. I asked McCullough to let me have a speaker from Belfast, as I would be unable to get anyone locally. When I reached the little hotel in Toomebridge after the meeting in the bog at Gulladuff which had ended with a man being nearly drowned in a six-foot bog-hole, I found Herbert Moore Pim awaiting me. I had never met him before, but had known of him and had occasionally noted things which he had written under the name "A. Newman". He was quite young, but produced a recent photograph of himself wearing a full black beard. He asked me who the photograph reminded me of, but I had not the clue. He then told me that when he spoke at a meeting at Waterford he created a tremendous sensation because the people thought it was Parnell come alive again. Pim suggested that we leave a note in the kitchen addressed to Father Nolan, the P.P., and ask the people of the hotel to deliver it before, Mass next morning. I agreed and Pin wrote a letter asking Father Nolan to announce our meeting for the following afternoon from the altar. We left the note on the kitchen table, and it was duly delivered.. Then Pim went to Mass he had the pleasure of hearing Father Nolan denounce us in the most violent terms. We duly arrived in the afternoon at the old Temple of Liberty, Toome. A small crowd of the I.R.B. element gathered around us. Father Nolan held an opposition meeting, which was twice or three times as big, a few yards
22. away. Nevertheless we were satisfied, because for the first time since the Volunteer split vie had really come into the open in a place outside Belfast and Derry. On the whole, the period I spent as I.R.B. organiser was not very fruitful, although I think some good came of it afterwards. I was very glad when I got a letter from Bulmer Hobson saying that the Volunteer Executive had appointed me as organiser for the Volunteers, and requesting me to go to Dublin to meet the staff before proceeding to the South. I went down to Dublin immediately after Christmas and found for the first time that there was some clash between Hobson and Sean McDermott. Apparently Sean was not too pleased that I had been, as it were, taken off the I.R.B. work and transferred to the Volunteers. I found that "Ginger" O'Connell, Liam Mellows and I had all been appointed and were being assigned to different areas. We spent most of the day talking with Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett, as members of the staff, and with Hobson as Secretary of the Volunteers. One of the things that interested me was a purely theoretical and informal discussion, Which took place during an interval of the Volunteer business, on the question of accepting a German prince as King of Ireland instead of insisting on a Republic, as the acceptance of a prince would make the Germans, whose victory we all anticipated, more likely to insist on the complete independence of Ireland. There was some division of opinion in the group, but there was, on the part of some at least, a willingness to consider such a solution should the need arise.
23. I had never met Joseph Plunkett before this, and was interested to hear him say that if and when we got independence, the post which he would most wish to have in an Irish Government would be that of Minister of Foreign Affairs. I set off for Cork with instructions to see Tomas MacCurtain and Terry MacSwiney. I went to Tomas MacCurtain's place of business and was told he had left, but was given his private address. I found that the house was his mother-in-law's, and she told me that he had opened business on his own account that day and gave me the address of his shop in, I think, Blackpool. I saw him there, but he was too busy to talk to me for long. He arranged, however, that I should go to the Volunteer Hall that night when a general meeting was being held. I saw Terence MacSwiney later in the evening, and had a long talk with both himself and MacCurtain immediately before the Volunteers assembled. Up till then the Volunteers in Cork had been under control of an Executive with a President. It was desired to choose a Commandant and put the organisation on a military basis. Dermot Fawsitt, now Judge Fawsitt, had been President of the Executive, and he reckoned as a civilian. I gathered that there had been difficulties between him and MacCurtain and MacSwiney, who represented the military point of view. I was introduced to the meeting as the representative of Headquarters, and directed my speech towards securing that the policy advocated by MacSwiney and MacCurtain would be carried out.
24. I remained round Cork for some time, but there was really very little to be done. I think the Volunteers in Cork who were, as they were called, MacNeillites did not number much more than 100, or 120 at the outside. I went with Tomas MacCurtain one night and addressed some men in a hall in Blarney, but there, I think, the local group did not number more than twenty, and seemed very dispirited. There was nominally a Company Mallow. I in visited them, and formed a very poor impression of them, although there were perhaps forty to fifty in the hall. They were doing no drilling. They had no rifles, and seemed to do nothing but gather together a few nights in the week. After a time one of the members confided the secret of the whole business to me - there was a back way from the hall into one of the public-houses, and membership of the Volunteers was a means of getting drink easily after hours. As this member said frankly to me, "We are only in the Volunteers to get a "wet". In Mitchelstown, however, there was a very good Company of forty or fifty men with good people in charge of them, and they had rifles. Mitchelstown was the only Company of Volunteers worthy of the name to be found in County Cork, outside Cork City, at the time. I went to Kinsale, where I had been told that Eamon O'Neill would help me, but I found it utterly impossible to contact him. I gathered from one or two of the people in the town that he had temporarily gone anti-german, as it were, and that I should be able to get no help from him. I saw his brother Phil once or twice. The
25. position seemed to be so bad in Kinsale that I had to give up hope of forming a Volunteer Company. Sean Hales owned a steam-engine and wagons and was engaged in some sort of a contracting job in Kinsale at the time. He advised me to go over to see his brother, Tom, at Ballinadee. I went to Bandon and walked out from Bandon to Ballinadee. When I asked for the Hales's house I was directed to the house of relatives who were, I understand, Protestants and Unionists, and who received me very coldly. However, they told me where to find Tom Hales. Tom, his brother and sisters were very enthusiastic. Tom had actually taken some steps to get a Volunteer Company going in Ballinadee. We arranged that I should come out the following Sunday, and that we should march to Kilbrittain and try to stir up something there. I remember when the people came out from Mass at Ballinadee, Tom Hales shouted for the Volunteers to fall-in. When they had numbered off, he was so new to even the elements of volunteering that his order to form fours was given in this form: "Let ye form fours now". I went to many other places in Cork, Kanturk, for example, where I had the name of a man, also across the border to Rathmore in County Kerry, where there was a Dan O'Donoghue, who was a strong Sinn Fêiner. He was a porter at the railway station. He told me, however, that apart froth himself and his brother there was nobody in Rathmore at the time who would be on our side. His brother Michael was with me in Belfast jail afterwards and later became a Superintendent in the Guards. I visited Fermoy, where I had the name of a barber
26. called Shea. He was a very amusing talker. He told me that he had taken the beard off Stephen Gwynn when the latter had joined the British Army in the so-called Irish Brigade, and asked me officially if he had been wrong not to cut Gwynn's throat when such a good opportunity offered. I solemnly assured him that he had made a great mistake in letting Gwynn go. However, in spite of his amusing talk he could find me nobody in Fermoy who was prepared to make any move towards forming a Company of Irish Volunteers. Generally speaking, the position in County Cork was nearly as bad as it could be. I cannot say that I succeeded in doing anything worth while. in the week or two I spent in Cork, except in stirring up recruiting a bit in Mitchelstown and helping Tom Hales a little bit in drilling the Company which he had established, as well as arousing some interest in the adjoining parishes. I next proceeded to County Kerry, which was definitely better. I went first to Dingle, where I found the Volunteer Company active and growing in strength. There was also quite a good Company in Ballyferriter, and contingents came in from the surrounding area. In Tralee the Volunteers had a good number of rifles. They had an excellent drill hall in the old skating rink, and they had a Belfast man, whom I knew and who had been dismissed from the Labour Exchange, as drill instructor. Although there was hostility in the town, Sinn Féin was definitely on the up-grade.
27. I went, on Austin Stack's recommendation, to Castlegregory and met a very enthusiastic. girl named Susie Dillane in the little hotel there. She sent for Tadhg Brosnan for me, and after a talk he met me later with three or four others. He arranged to do some canvassing, and when I came back at the end of a week he had a meeting, out of which I got twenty-eight men to enrol as Volunteers, and we marched up and down through Castlegregory to proclaim that a start was being made. With Alf Cotton, the Tralee instructor, I succeeded in forming a small group in Camp, between Tralee and Annascaul. I also got good Company going in Annascaul itself. I remember the public reaction to the pro-german propaganda which the police used. There were about thirty to forty men in the Annascaul Company, and in the course of a Sunday morning drill I was marching them up the street. At that time I always marched behind a Company of Volunteers, as that was the only sure way to prevent talk and also to prevent occasional desertion. Two little girls, nine or ten years of age, in shawls were standing with their mouths open watching the men march past. As I approached, one nudged the other and said, "That's the German now". I found that it was being put out all over Kerry that I was a German. Moving from the Dingle and Tralee area, I found a fairly good Company in Killarney, which up to that time had remained neutral. I spoke to the principal, members of it privately, and was invited to speak to the Company, with the result that it voted unanimously for MacNeill.
28. Kenmare was; a black spot. I went there twice, but was not able to get more than four or five men, who a were found for me by the local Irish teacher. They were afraid to meet me anywhere in the town, and I had to go out a. country road and Into a field to talk to them. I had to give up the hope of starting a Volunteer Company there. In Killorglin I had the name of a man who was supposed to be a leading Sinn Fêiner. He had a cobbler's shop, and when I called and told him who I was and what I wanted he said that the only advice he could give me was to take the first train out of Killorglin. A Miss. Cotter and a sister of Fionan MacCollum had a school in the town which had been started by Tom O'Donnell, M.P. As the school had a good name for Irish I judged that they would be favourable and went to see them. They made me stay for tea and I spent the evening with them, but they were unable to give me the name of anyone likely to join the Volunteers, much less. make an effort to get others to join. I left Killorglin then and did not go back. I had the names of two or three people in Fyries a very small village near Castleisland. I cycled out there towards evening, having done a good deal of cycling earlier in the day, and made up my mind that whatever the place was like I should stay the night. I asked about digs in two or three houses and finally found lodgings. I then went up the street to the people whose names I had. One of them was O'Sullivan, a relative, I believe, of Eugene O'Sullivan who had been an M.P. for
29. Kerry He repeated the advice I had been given in Killorglin, he told me to get my bicycle and get out of the place. The other man whose name I had been given was a. little more friendly, but told me that nothing at all could be done there. If I had not already arranged lodgings I think that, although I was tired, I should have cycled back to Tralee. I went into my digs and got my tea, and afterwards strolled up the street. A number of young men were playing bowls and about ten or fifteen others were watching them. I sat on the ditch watching the play, and after a time began to speak to the people beside me. My accent showed I was a stranger. There was some curiosity, and soon I was chatting away with half a dozen. Before long the question of the war came up, and I spoke a strongly against the British and for the Germans. There was a good deal of quite friendly argument, and finally I moved off. A man followed me immediately and told me that his name was Paddy Breen, that he was a member of the Kerry team and that he was in favour of the MacNeill Volunteers. I spent a good while talking to him, and we arranged that next morning we would go out to see some people whom he thought likely to help. We spent the following morning cycling out. Amongst those I met was young Rice, who became prominent afterwards. We went into a field where he was ploughing and walked up and down with him for a while. Finally I left with the arrangement that I would come back to try to start a Volunteer Company after Mass the following Sunday. I arrived back as arranged, and when the people
30. came out from Mass I stood up on a ditch and addressed them. Having made all the usual appeals to them to join the Volunteers I finally asked those who were willing to join to fall-in, and we got about thirty. I returned several times to see that Company and it held together and flourished. In Cahirciveen there was one of the best Companies in the County. They had a good number of Volunteers, and had actually some forty rifles. The leader of everything in Cahirciveen was a teacher and the owner of a substantial drapery establishment - Diarmuid O'CONNELLL. He had a place for hiding the rifles behind the shelving in his shop. The rifles were usually taken out on Saturday night for the Sunday parade, were left back into his shop late on Sunday night by the Volunteers, and were put away behind closed shutters by himself late at night. A large number of rolls of cloth had to be taken out, then a panel was removed and there was a short stairs down to a small room which he had made and in which the rifles were stacked. There was no other Company near Cahirciveen at the time, and, although we conducted some route marches out into the country, we. did not succeed in forming one. But compared to Cork, Kerry at the beginning of 1915 was extremely good. There were half a dozen active Companies in the Dingle Peninsula, the Dingle Company having twenty or thirty rifles. There was a so-called Battalion in Tralee with perhaps one hundred men. They also had a number of rifles. There was a. fair-sized Company in Killarney, a very good Company in Cahirciveen,
31. and there was a small Company in Castleisland. There was also a sort of a Company in Listowel. In all cases the Kerry Companies were growing, and it was obvious that in a lot of places it would be possible to form new Companies very soon. From Kerry I went on to Limerick. At that time there. was a Limerick County Executive which consisted of a representative from each Company, or Company area, in the County, of which the President was Father Tom Wall. A lot of the Companies were not very strong, in fat some of them had a rather nominal existence, but the situation everywhere throughout the County was improving. Robert Monteith, who had been dismissed from his job in Islandbridge and had been employed as instructor by the Volunteer Executive, had just come down from Dublin and was operating in Limerick City. One of the things that I undertook on reaching Limerick County was to organise Companies outside the city which he might visit from time to time, and to whose officers, when they had been elected, he might give Instruction which they could pass on to their men. The Volunteers in Limerick were well situated, because they had possession of the Fianna Hall, which had been built largely with the assistance of John Daly and which was situated at the back of his house in Barrington St. It was not a very large hall, but drill was possible in it for a small number of men, and instructions on semaphore, Morse and map-reading, as well as all the other class subjects, could be very conveniently carried on in it.